Okay. I am going to call to order the town of Andover Board of Selectmen Meeting. Regular meeting for Monday, July 14th. I'm getting started at 7:01. Our first order of business is the pledge of alle pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. item two is public speak. We're going to start with Kathy and Mike Plazi.
Hi. Hi, Jeff. we we have nothing. Okay. No, we have nothing. Thank you.
Okay, you got it. Elaine Bukart, we'll let you go. Public speak as well as your commission report.
Yeah. Yeah, sure. I I guess the the main a lot of my stuff is part of the main agenda, so I'll go ahead and reserve it for that.
Okay, you got it. David St. Lauron I have no comment.
Okay. Linda Fish.
All set. Thanks.
Diane Grer.
Yes. Hello. I hope you can hear me.
We can.
Okay. You know, technology gets away from me sometimes. I I just like to request that all the board of selectman members turn their video on. I think it's very important for the residents to be able to see our border selectman in action. So, if if you could turn your videos on so we can all see you, I'd appreciate that. So, thank you very much.
Okay.
Just for the record, just for the record, Jeff Carol is traveling.
Oh, I understand. She's on the phone. I we've again Diane, thank you. I don't usually comment on requests until later. So, Haley Proto,
I have nothing for right now. Thank you.
Okay. Marcy Miner,
I know. Thank you.
Terara Tagliera, I might have said that wrong. I apologize.
I have nothing at this point.
Joanne Heert,
all set. Thank you.
Tess Grouse. Nothing at this time. Thank you,
Linda. Derek.
no, I'm good. I'm good for now. Thanks. Just here to talk about whatever we're going to talk about. Okay. Kimberly, I'm all set. Thank you.
Sorry, Linda. Leanne Hutchinson.
Yes. Hi. Thanks. I wanted to thank Eric for the content of his letter that's in your packet regarding the delays at the Bunker Hill Road Bridge. And I think it's a very well-worded letter. And as you can imagine, it's not fun having to go around for so many months and be concerned with emergency response times and things like that. So, I'm glad to see that the town is is doing this oversight. Thank you.
All right. did I miss anyone?
Okay. And just for the record, Diane, as as Jeff Murray mentioned, Carol Lee is on her phone, so she will not be turning on her video during this meeting, and we'll work toward improving that in the future, but it's okay. let's move on to item three, additions and changes agenda. Do we have anything that anyone wants to add to this agenda?
I would I would like to add the appointment of three additional boards and commissions, Memorial Day, Norton Fund Commission, and the Recreation Commission. Those were all sent in to the town clerk's office. And I do have all the names. okay. So, just as a discussion of that, do we all have the names? Did they all come through in the packet? I didn't see it.
I didn't see any names even for the two commissions that were that are listed there. I don't see any of the names. I think the other names were Elaine's letter.
I would rather the Memorial Day, the Norton Fund and the Rec Commission, the let the names come out to us in advance so that we can understand who is on those. And you know, that's just how I I mean, I I don't have an understanding of who's on those commissions.
It's just we've had it advertised for a couple of months and it just everyone who's currently on would like to be reappointed. Oh, we'll add it as 4B and we can talk about it. But, anybody have a problem with 4B or I'm sorry, 5C?
5C. Yeah,
be better. 5 C. other boards we'll call it. All right. So, Carol made a motion to add other boards as 5C to the agenda for Memorial Day, Norton Fund, and the Rec Commission. I'll second that. All those in favor? Hi.
Wait a second. Wait a second. I got to do a new process. I apologize. I have to go through this each individually. There's been some issues with the person doing the minutes that they can't understand who's voting for what. so I I got to go through this. I'll do a quick Ann, how do you vote?
I.
Jeff Murray, how do you vote? No, you got to say it.
He's muted. I
Scott Persan, how do you vote?
I Carol Lee, how do you vote?
Okay, Jeff Magcguire votes I. So, five nothing. sorry, but that's how we're going to have to do in the future. Eric has told me that because our votes have been having some problems during a transcription that we need to go individually because at the same time
Jeff could we just if you say could we just raise our hand you could say Jeff Murray's and I k and I and I person and I
Yeah. I I'll I would rather us all do it individually but I can't I can on certain issues that are not a problem. Jeeoff, how's that?
Okay. Yeah. I just say just to speed it just to speed it up.
Yeah, no problem. I can I can identify when we're going to have a problem. So, anybody else want to add anything else?
Okay, so we're adding that as 5C. item four is board and commission presentations commission on aging and we have Elaine Bukart here with us tonight.
Hi. I I want to thank you for letting the commission on aging, you know, speak our viewpoints about what we think this senior the community and senior center need when it comes to people running it and directing it. the center's been open for about a year. and for the last year with two directors and they've been doing on the job training basically. there really was no comprehensive list of duties that we were aware of. And both those positions have been part-time hours, not full-time. I think it's amazing what we have with that with two full, you know, part-time people, doing this. I know and I I you know I and I know Kathy Palazi pointed out to me that originally our first director was actually learning from Kathy all of the things that she was doing for the seniors including senior transportation for her to incorporate into the senior center duties. and so that that was done, you know, that was done. so even though I say it's a new center, it's we've never had a center before, we've had all of these, things before for seniors, including senior transportation. now, we have an active community senior center and most of the senior needs are being met right now. It's pretty amazing all the things that are going on. but we do need to add community activities and these are
mainly evening and night and weekend activities because you know the adults are working during the day and the kids are in school a lot. During the summer, you know, we've got a little bit more freedom with with kids, but it's still the parents work. now there's a need for a full-time director. We feel strongly there's a need for a full-time directory who can be in charge, who can grow the center, who can stay with us, who wants to stay with us as opposed to someone working part-time. That might not be a sustainable position. They might not be able to always work part-time. You'll find a lot more people who want a full-time job that they can stick with. also that person needs to direct volunteers and any part-time people that we have working for the center. I do have in the packet a writeup and it's quite a few things that we wrote that talks about all the things that the community and senior center director needs to do. And we have running the day-to-day activities of the center as well as creating new activities as needed, including coordinating lunches and the providers of those lunches. communicating all of the activities that are being offered to the town in an effective manner combination of newsletter, website posting, Facebook
page, emails, phone calls, and this requires building a current list of emails and phone numbers. For some seniors who aren't techsavvy, phone calls are the only effective way to communicate with them. running, scheduling, and reporting on senior and disabled transportation services as well as maintenance of the vehicles. Investigating, applying for and reporting on any grants available for community in senior centers. plan and run senior trips. Work with other centers to coordinate shared trips and activities. obtain and assign tasks to volunteers. create an efficient system to keep track of all of that above. And though this commission on aging is supportive of the needs of seniors in the town, there are a lot of community activities that need to encompass evening and night hours when kids and adults are available. And currently the ebike rentals are part of the senior centers the the c center's
director responsibility. So like I said it's in the packet. The write up is there. So anybody wants to look at the packet go ahead and see that list. But I was basically just listing it for people who hadn't seen it so that they know. It's it's quite a job that we're asking people to do and I would like we would like to see it be a full-time job. we had heard rumors that it was going to be two 19-hour positions and a 10-hour position. I'm not sure where that came from because I haven't heard any of those discussions in public, you know, in any forums. So, we just wanted to make sure that people know that we're available for questioning. You know, we we'd like to have our input and this was it. That's it. Any questions?
Okay. I'm sorry. There I was on mute.
Yeah, I know.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Does anybody have any questions for Elaine or the Commission on Aging?
Thank you. I did notice that in your letter you also had the appointments. There you go. That's that's where that was. Okay. All right. Anybody else have anything that they want to add in this area? Okay. We're going to move on to item five. item 5A, Commission on Aging. We have a letter also from Elaine and the Commission on Aging is everyone on the current committee is signing up for the next two years. that includes Elaine Bukart, Linda Armstrong, Eleanor Skoo, Kim Haw, Kathy Pelazi as an alternate, and right now Robera Doherty as an exofficial member, as the municipal agent. anybody have any issues related to those candidates? No. I'll make
The only question The only question I have is did Eric check with the clerk's office to see if any other names came in for those commissions? I did check today to make sure nobody came for the other three.
Okay.
Didn't check the other commissions. Normally that gets forwarded to myself and Kate. Okay. so we'll assume that since nothing got forwarded to you, there were no other requested applicants. does anyone have an any issues with any of those candidates? I'd like to make a motion that we appoint Linda Armstrong, Eleanor Scoo, Kim Haw, Elaine Bukart, as regular members of the Commission on Aging, and Kathy Palazi as an alternate.
Seconded.
all those in favor? I
Carol
I
Okay, so that vote was five nothing. all the members of the board voted in favor of appointing those members.
What about
and it was seconded by Jeff Murray.
Seconded by Jeff Murray.
What What about the EDC Jeff Maguire?
We're getting to it. It's next on the list. 5B economic development committee. in the same letter in our packet Elaine sat there who's also on the EDC sat there and let us know that all the members current members are also renewing that bea Gdamsky, Megan Lai, Patrick Dherty, and Elaine Bukart. All right. And since Eric did not receive any email notifications from the town clerk's office, we're assuming there's no other applicants. So again, I'll make a motion that we appoint those four individuals to the economic development committee and that was Bata Gadamsky, Megan Lai, Patrick Dohy, and Elaine Bukart.
Seconded.
Seconded by Jeff Murray. Go ahead, Carol. I vote yes.
Oh, she votes yes. Okay. so we're done with discussion. All those in favor?
I.
So, we all voted in favor. That was a five nothing vote and the motion was made by Jeff Magcguire and seconded by Jeff Murray. There was an email sent to us from the wetlands commission
related to
who they also had their annual meeting to elect new officers and they're going to keep the same members.
let's approve that next month. Let's put that in the packet and sit there. And it's kind of the same thing I would honestly do with the other the memorial, the Norton, and the rec commission.
Can Can't we just do it? It's already they sent it to us today.
I did not see that as I was reviewing the information. Let me go look at it.
I I have I have it if you need me to I'll read it off if you want.
Go ahead. That would be perfect.
The wetlands commission elected new chair and vice chair at the meeting last night. The postelection member list reappointed to another term with the commission. The chair is Duncan Fe. Vice chair is Megan Lai. members are Jed Larson, Janice Mashy, Brad Kelly, and an alternate as William Monroe.
Hey, Scott, when was that sent? Because I didn't get it either.
Exactly.
I got it 2:30 this afternoon from Kate.
Work.
No, now I got it. I was looking for someone else.
Okay, I got it, too. Yep. I was looking at first. I didn't look.
Okay. I have no problem with that. So, are you making a motion to appoint them, Scott?
I I I'm making a motion to appoint these new members.
You want me to read them again, Jeff?
No, I got it. Chair Duncan Fe, Vice Chair Megan Lai, members Jed William Jed Larson and Janice Mashy and Brad Kelly. Alternate William Monroe.
Second that.
Oh, you made the motion.
Yeah,
I'll second that.
And Cre.
That's perfect.
Jeff can second it.
And Crema seconded it. all those u any further discussion? All those in
favor? Hi.
We voted for nothing on those members.
Carol, let's go through each one of these other groups. So, let's start with the Memorial Day committee. So, you can make a motion. Read the names so we know what we're looking at.
Okay. So I make a motion to reappoint John McCall, Louise Goodwin, Bob Hope, Kim Haw, and Carol Lee to the Memorial Day Commission.
Okay, who's going to second that?
I'll second it.
Jeff Murray has seconded that item. Further discussion? All those in favor? I
that vote was also five nothing. Motion made by Carol Lee, seconded by Jeff Murray on the Memorial Day committee. Carol Norton.
Okay. for the Norton Fund Commission. I would like to reappoint Linda Armstrong, sorry, Louise Goodwin, Charlotte Nelson, William Penn, and Heidi Zita.
what was the last name? Heidi. Heidi. What?
Okay. Does anyone else know that individual and no? Okay. Heidi Lita Fons I could get. Okay. Someone want to second that?
I'll second.
Second it. We'll give it to Ann this time.
And creme seconded that one. further discussion. All those in favor? I
The vote was 5 nothing. The motion was made by Carol Lee and seconded by Anne Crerme to appoint the Norton Commission. Carol, please make sure you get the Heidi's last name and spelling to Eric. rec.
Okay. And the rec commission I'd like to appoint Ann Marie. Reappoint Amarie Bagel, Bob Post, Kim Haw, Cindy Murray, and Carol Lee as regular members, and Linda Armstrong and Megan Lai as alternates. Someone want to second that?
I'll second it. Carol Lee, who was who else?
Cynthia Murray. Kimia Murray
and the alternate was Megan Lai
and Linda Armstrong.
Linda.
Okay. All those in favor? I
You are unmuted.
I'm Jeff. I'm gonna abstain. I'm Jeff. I'm gonna abstain from this vote. Okay,
I can understand why.
So, the vote was 41 everyone. Ann Cre, Carol Lee, Scott Person, Jeff Magcguire voted in favor and Jeff Murray abstained. Okay. we're going to move on to item six, resignations. Tom Pearl, Armen Tater 3 at Department of Public Works, resigned last month. hence the reason we're trying to fill two add an additional position. anything else we need to deal with on that, Eric?
Eric, you're on mute.
No, there's not.
Okay.
Shut up. Just to give you a heads up, we did you know Carol Lee an Scott person and myself did with public works last Friday and we discussed the position. So we have a pretty good the hiring committee has a pretty good idea what the skill set we need going forward for the open maintainer position and for the public works director.
Okay. So just for an understanding for the public the hiring committee met with public works and Annne Cre and Caroli attended.
Yes. Correct.
Okay. All right. So, I'm glad that meeting went well and I look forward to the hiring committee's recommendations. Okay. Town administrators report. Eric, you're up.
Okay. So, there hasn't been a ton that's changed since the report that I've submitted. the as far as the resident trooper goes, they did catch the individual that burglarized Andover Landscaping and Andover Plaza multiple times. he burglarized or they burglarized a number of things in a number of towns and and were caught by the Connecticut State Police. So that is that. we have had a bunch of complaints about dirt bikes on the rail trail lately. the resident trooper has a couple lines on individuals that he is questioning related to that. that's basically all I wanted to talk about other than the items that are still on the table from the capital improvement planning committee and they are namely the request from the fire department regarding SCBA. in your packet you'll notice there's another request from Wally Barton that got discussed by both board of selectman and board of finance, but no action was taken. And I think you owe the fire department a up or down vote on that
one way or the other. Both commissions do, so they know where they're going with that. I also put in the packet a preliminary financing option from Mnt Bank. per the Excuse me. For the Board of Fire Commission, they are going to look at the vehicle and I think it's South Dakota at the end of this month, do the on-site inspection at the factory, at which point the the vehicle will transit to Connecticut. Still anticipating having that in place at some point in August. So we have about a month to work out the final financing arrangement. So what we need is approval by the board of selectmen. The town has already approved the
concept of financing the vehicles, but they didn't have final terms because it was too early in the process to have that from the bank. So I put that in your packet. presuming that the board is okay with it, we will proceed with the bank and work out final terms with Mnt Bank. So those are the the two kind of important items as far as the CIP that the board of selectmen needs to weigh in on. and I'll certainly answer questions about those or any other things that the board wants to discuss. And for reference, the stuff on Mnt Bank starts at about page 34 of the packet. and the note from Oh, sorry. and we seem to have put the note from the fire commission regarding the FCBA in the wrong spot in the packet. So, my apologies for that. The only other question I wanted to discuss as part of my report is we get money from the state of Connecticut every year back for the NIPS. Those are the little bottles of alcohol that are supposed to be going to some sort of program to alleviate litter in the town of Andover. And so I'm looking from ideas from the board of selectmen on what a reasonable method of spending that money and what your priorities are in terms of litter that you want to see accomplished with that money. It's about $3,000 a year roughly. and we need to notify the state of what we're going to do with those funds.
Eric, Eric, I you may want to reach out to Colchester because I was talking to somebody in Colchester and I guess they hire students or somebody to go around the clean up the side of the roads with the money. So, they use it to pay per hour to go around and just clean up nip bottles and garbage and things. I guess it's very successful from what I've heard.
Yeah. I mean, I I we've contemplated that and also asking reaching out to the CARK program whether any of their members want to earn additional money by picking up roadside trash.
Yeah, I mean, we can we leave it open to them, too. It's just it I don't know how they have it structured, but
I I guess it's a pretty successful model, so we could we could mirror it and probably, you know, not have to go through too much heartburn getting it going. So
yeah, my concern is strictly the liability of having a bunch of people on the side of the road, you know, even
Okay. Well, that maybe they have an answer. Maybe they have an answer for that, but
sure.
I actually like that idea. We could sit there and spread the money around to
groups, Boy Scouts, you know, Boy Scouts want to go and do a cleanup, we can get them. Okay.
Stip end donation.
Eric, I I was on mute, I guess. on your report you have a lot of initials. Can you help me out? SDS work plan stands for Oh. that's just chemical. SDS is the name of the the I don't remember what it officially. They're they're basically the material data safety sheets. They used to be called MSDS and now they're called SDS.
So MSDS sheets. Got it. It's a work plan. Okay. So material data material safety data sheets is what they're called in my world. Okay. I got
They're not actually called that anymore by international convention. They're now called SDS, not MSDS.
Okay. Easy IQC. So that's a procurement program that is run through the COGS, the Capitol Region Council of Governments. it's basically pre-bid contracting that a lot of towns are going to for public works projects.
Okay. item six, you have MOAs with the union or acceptable to the union. Did you include them in the packet? I did not include them in the packet, but I did send them to all the board of selectmen members pre prior to the meeting.
because you wanted them as early as possible to review. So I did not repeat them in the packet.
Okay, let me look at that. but I am looking to get those signed as soon as possible. So, I was assuming if the board of selectmen didn't have any particular objections to them, I would sign them with the union probably tomorrow.
Okay. Let let me look at that one. let's talk about the SCBA the scuba. First of all, I thought we were in approvement of that or but the only issue that I thought was out there related to those units was how many units we were buying and had that all been approved. So what you're saying to us is the final number never got to the board of finance.
Well, the final number got to the board of finance, but I don't think the board of selectment, it seems to me per our policies that both the board of selectment and the board of finance have to be in agreement with the purchase. And I don't believe either board has ever actually voted on that.
Okay.
and I can't proceed towards authorizing any kind of purchases until that happens.
Okay. So at our next meeting, we need the final version of this and we need to vote to approve this. Okay.
And then it's still going to be held off to next year because it's not in the current budget. It's a capital item that the money is in the capital fund to fund.
It is in the capital fund. So we put there we just have not approved its use.
That's because that's what I'm having a tough time in my memory. I'm like I thought we approved money for this.
I thought we approved this but you're saying we haven't approved the final acquisition.
Correct. So there is sufficient money because the the that fund has been acrewing for a while to pay for both the first payment on the fire truck and on the and purchase the SCBA without any doubt. There's plenty of money to do both those things. So, presuming you're going to utilize a 10-year lease and you're going to authorize the SCBA, there's currently enough money in that fund to support both.
But it just needs authorization.
And then we have been saving money for this new truck at a rate equivalent to what the Mnt Bank payment is.
Correct.
Okay. And just for the record, what have we been saving every year for? How much?
Well, it varies from year to year, but lately we've been saving I think it's 135,000. I can check real quick.
Okay. And so the Mnt Bank number was somewhere around $117,000 for a 10-year period.
let me look. That's in your packet.
Yeah. It's 107 100. Call it 118,000.
Okay. 117780. Okay. All right. If you can get if you can get the final information for the SCBA, we should approve that at our next meeting. Anybody have a problem with waiting till next meeting? We're good. Okay. as far as the the Mnt Bank financing, is there anything that you want us to do related to that other than you would like us to approve the potential usage of Mnt Bank to finance that truck? What would you like from us?
Yes, that is this is a better deal than the other financing officer offer. So, we would prefer to use this one rather than the the preliminary one we gave at the public meeting last spring.
Okay.
This spring. Then I make a motion that we utilize Mnt Bank to finance the purchase of the fire truck for the fire Andover Fire Department at an annual payment of $117,000 [Music] 700 and $78050. 52 cents per year
in there.
All right, we'll give that one to Scott Persona. He seconded that. Any further discussion on the use of Mnt Bank for financing? It's at a an annual rate of 476%.
Okay.
All right. No further discussion. All those in favor?
I
All right. So, that vote was 5 Z. Everyone was in favor. Jeff Magcuire made the motion and Scott Person seconded it. Eric, there was one other item that you wanted us to address. It was the NIP money. so, you're going to come back to us with a use of a program. I mean, can we put that into the cart fund and then spend it out of the cart fund in a in that manner?
we certainly can. we've done it before to prop up the cart fund.
Yeah.
but the the question is, what do you really want to what do you want to accomplish with it?
Pick up nip bottles.
not just not just NIP bottles. Pick up all trash.
Trash. gym.
I mean, we're not going to have them go out and just look for nip bottles. And, you know, I want to I I if you're going to do it, you should have the different neighborhoods in the community that let's even say it's different neighborhoods in the community that people can walk reasonably well. We don't want them out on Route Six. but if they're in any other local local road, the lake area, over where Ann and Jeff live, Scott, sorry, no one will be picking up trash on Route Six in front of you.
I already pick it up.
You already pick it up. You're
I pick my trash up. Yeah,
you're a good I mean, we could structure it so they have to wear a safety vest or something like that. And then if people want to volunteer their time picking up, maybe we use it as a donation to a organization in town. if they want to volunteer their time for an organization, we donate on behalf of them.
I think it's a great idea. So, if you can sit there and see, Eric, if how much effort and energy that would take to implement, that would be great. And then we can use that money. But if we have to pick a place to put the money, does anyone have a problem with putting the money in the cart fund right now?
No. Because what the the what the treasurer is asking us is where the money coming in from the state is going in our report. So like if you went down to the oh what page is it? 89 in our packet. She wants to know where to put it either there in in a revenue sedate of the the P&L or in the fund side. Right? So, I say we put it in the cart fund right now. I mean,
are there any are there any restrictions in the money going in the cart fund, Eric?
yeah, there's a ton of restrictions. every bit of state money comes with a bunch of restrictions.
That wasn't what I asked. I asked, is there restrictions for the town for the cart fund?
Nope. Not that I know of
because yes, there's state restrictions and understand that. But I want to make sure that like if we put it in a fund and that fund had restrictions on us and we sat there and and wanted to now take it out and we get into issues with other residents, oh that money went into that fund and you're not supposed to do X with it. We all just talked about utilizing it for a a litter cleanup program, which I think Jeff Murray's idea is a great idea. We should try to implement it.
I think the cart fund money though, unless there can be a separate pocket in there, that's divided by three or four nonprofits in town who volunteer to sort the cans and bottles and then bring them to the redemption center. So, just wanted to point that out.
I mean, can we can we create a road cleanup fund or something and just put it in there? Roadside cleanup fund. Oh, we can just do it at right now. It can just sit as a subf fund in the cart fund. That's not a big deal.
I just don't want to create I don't know who's the I don't Mike Plazy was, but I don't know who took that over. I just don't want to create a nightmare for whoever's got to implement those funds. If they have to start diving out money to different groups because of it, it just it's a lot of additional work for somebody that's already probably volunteering their time. I'm I'm not assuming we're going to have somebody I mean we would have to make a town employee give a town employee the responsibility of managing that.
Yeah.
can we can we just put the money in the general fund?
Probably not. Okay, Ben, let's just let's just put it into the cart fund and put a sub fund in there. Do whatever you need to do to keep that money isolated so that we could utilize it for a potential litter cleanup program. So, make a motion that we authorize the treasurer to, put the, NIP money, another acronym, in the CART fund for use as a funding mechanism for a litter pickup program.
Second,
K. Second.
Any further discussion on that item?
All those in favor?
Just just want to make sure before we vote, we're going to be able to pull this money out, right? 100%.
Well, we just we put it in with a caveat that it's used for a litter pickup fund. So,
okay.
If somebody says we can't do it, then our vote is
they just don't want to add input in that fund and not be able to transfer it out. That's that's
Yeah, I know. We can pay anything we want out of that fund.
Okay. As long as we have the management over that fund to transfer it to wherever we need to.
I just I don't want to get pigeonhold into putting in the car fun and not be able to do anything with it.
Okay.
So, okay.
All those in favor?
I
All right. That was also five nothing motion by Jeff Magcguire, seconded by Anne Cre. Okay. Eric, is there anything else we need to address that's coming out of your report?
Not that I know of. Big ones.
Okay. So, we made a motion on the Mnt Bank. We made a motion on the NIP NIP money. And we're waiting on the respirator packages for next month so that we understand exactly what we're approving. Okay.
I will while I know to resubmit those.
Okay.
All right. item eight, old business discuss and act upon community center signage discussion. Elaine Bukart had has been working with art signs out of Ellington on the Route 6 signs. Art came by the town hall today and he provided a drawing of a sign that mimics the top of the the Route Six signs for the community center u wall. I sent an email to the board of members before this afternoon related to it. just take a look at it. He has not provided us with a cost. And so if everybody can sit there and look at it graph like visually if they think that they're happy with it you know let us know. I'll be communicating with Art or Elaine will be communicating with Art. But he was nice enough to come out this afternoon and discuss it. So
my preference is the one on the building because it just actually marks that building as the community and senior center. If we just put the circle, it's kind of general, so we don't really
If you just tag that building with that sign, I kind of like it right on the side. And plus, it's out of the weather as well.
Under the sit.
He was looking for two signs. Actually, what he was saying was he wanted to the one on the wall on the side of the building was definitely something that we needed to do. And then he was recommending one by the road because there's no I mean listen the only the fire department has a sign out in the road and the school has a sign out in the road. The town hall does not have a sign out at the road and now with the community center we don't have one at the the road. I mean if you were going to do it and I've I had that discussion back and forth with them. you almost got to do Andovertown complex and have, you know, town hall because if you look at the side of the town hall, which I did with our today, it's it doesn't say Andover Town Hall. It says town of Andover and underneath that is the state trooper sign. So, it's something for us to think about if we want to sit there and put a sign by the road, but that wasn't what we were that that that was not what I was driving at with him. He he made a presentation to put something like that at the road.
Okay. I I just like I like the sign on the community center. I like the illustration there. It looked it was decent.
Yeah.
Was very tasteful. and then you guys got my email today. Is there any way like these signs that we already put in, is there any way we can maintain those signs that we already have because the grass around the sign on Route Six, it's about knee high right now and it just it does not look good. We really need to keep that trimmed and maintained.
we we will sit there and get to that, Jeff. And I know that Katie D. Roger is working on you know she has been working with Eric to sit there and deal with beautifification on that side. I know there was some discussions with the the state and Eric correct me if I'm wrong there was some discussions regarding the state regarding a wall to go around that and they we couldn't do it because it would create a traffic impediment. So, they're working at different solutions as to what they can do around that. But that is something that hopefully gets done sooner than later. And Eric, Jeff is right. Please sit there and go have the guys from public works go and and and deal with that. And while we're at it,
I know that the beautifification commission does a lot of work around the town hall, but if they could, there's some areas around the town hall that could use a little bit of weeding and it would be beneficial. also around the town hall, just everybody's aware, the lockers did go up. The concrete pad was poured. They're in the back near the the area that we had designated during our last visit there. so when you get there, check them out. They are kind of big.
All right.
We're glad we put them over the hill.
Yeah. Down in the corner. Okay.
So, who do you want to mow in front of or weed in front of town hall? You want me to ask beautifification to do that? Is that what you're asking for? I'm not asking. I mean, if you want to, you can let beautifification know and if they did it, great. But if not, have the guys for public works do it when they're up at the town hall at some point in time. There's just it's just a little area at the front door. Eric, I could have done it. I was going to do it, but I had to leave. So, and if you want me to, Eric, I'll go down and I'll take those weeds out there.
You're talking about the crab grass and the weeds in the front.
Yeah, that's it. You saw it as well. So,
yes,
if I saw it, then the community sees it, you know. half of it we just need to sit there and deal with ourselves. It's kind of like the hilltop on Route Six, Eric. You know, I know you do it every once every quarter. It still looks like a terrible spot. So, okay, we'll move on.
What are we doing with the sign now for the building? Is it going to go up like that or what?
well, we're waiting for him to give us a quote so we all know the number related to it. Once this was, hey, this is the potential visual. If no one has a crazy opinion about the visual, I think we goes, it it follows along the signs on Route 6. The signs on Route 6 look nice. I think it'll I think it'll blend in. it'll it'll match what we've been doing, what was done on Route Six. So, I say we go with that design. We just got to wait for the number that he tells us, and if we have to negotiate with him, we negotiate with him. and then we vote on it next meeting. So, we spend the money, right?
Why don't you just authorize it up to a certain amount of money and if it comes up less than that, then we just do it.
Well, why don't we let them come back to us and then we sit there and even if we have to sit there and send around an email, we send around an email saying, "This is what it is. Here's the quote. Are you in favor?"
Yeah, I would I would personally like to see a quote worked up without a dollar value assigned to it.
Me as well. item 8B, Bunker Hill Bridge update. Leanne Hutchinson noted Eric's letter in the packet. obviously Eric's been some delays down there. What have they what are they telling you? Have they responded to that letter or Oh, they've responded. you saw also in their packet their two week proposed schedule. it's really just the fact that the the NJR themselves has been doing a good job. They have one sub, the sub that's doing the micro piles, has been extremely delayed. you know, at this point, it's probably not pushing the project back into a second construction season, but I'm nervous that we're starting to get
close. So, we're all trying to hurry up the the sub so that we get this done.
Well, in in addition to that, there's also a pending change order. What's the status of that pending change order for $51,692?
we don't I haven't officially gotten the change order to sign off on. so you understand what the issue is. The CD Maguire, which is the company that designed the project to begin with, is responsible for reporting out all the material quantities in each each subcategory. they blew the estimation for the amount of structural steel, structural rebar that was needed for this project by a factor of two. Allan the construction inspector thinks they actually only submitted it for one of the two bridge abotments, not both. and as a result, there's a considerable difference between the quantity originally quoted and what was actually had to be ordered for this job. That accounts for the change order. that will be paid for the state. it won't be paid by the town in the end. you know, and we've had that that was the discussion point of the last meeting. and both the state of Connecticut DOT engineers have verified the amounts as the construction inspector. So, the contractor isn't over buying steel. the original designer underestimated the amount of steel that needed to go in the structure. So that's what accounts for
that. But of that 51 Well, this is a this is a 100% project. So it
Yep.
I guess I'm worried about something I shouldn't be. Okay.
Well, it's all tax dollars. It's just not found tax dollars.
Well, in this meeting, that's what I'm worried about on my personal side. all worried about what I'm paying federally and state. So,
understood.
okay. item 8C, the OSHA update.
okay. So you guys all saw the information at the last meeting that we had managed to negotiate the fine for our violations down to roughly half of the well exactly half of the original amount. So we ended up paying a total of around $2,100 to the state in fines for OSHA violations. subsequently we met with the OSHA occupational safety officer, the two training officers you know and requested their guidance on working out the work plans and the paperwork aspect of the violations. so that is ongoing. We have to rewrite a series of procedures that we had that don't meet their standards. They gave us some templates to work off of, which helps. that'll take the next couple months of time to work on, but we're well on track to meeting our final final
obligations to OSHA and to K OSHA. So, that's well underway. you know, in the end, the fines that we paid were about an order of magnitude less than what I anticipated we would pay based on what's happened to some of our surrounding towns. So, overall, we did very well with OSHA. but I don't like paying anybody any money. So, it still irritates me that we wrote him a check for a couple thousand bucks. that check the reduction in the fees and the fines is is basically the right number. You usually only get down to 50% of the total. the $4,000 as a total in my world is pretty good. you know, the town actually did a pretty good job considering what a small town we have and where
we're at and comparatively to what a town like Colombia or Hebrin had to endure related to this. And this is something new because I don't think anyone on this board and Carol being engaged much more for much longer. I don't think we've ever had an OSHA inspection before. Do you remember one? We have of public works, but we haven't at the other buildings and other entities.
How long ago?
there's notes in the file from 2017 of an OSHA inspection.
Okay. All right.
yeah, Jeeoff, we did very well with that.
We did extremely well.
Extremely well. I mean for people that don't understand OSHA and what they do they well there's a lot of changes going on federal government and why they came out and you know all that other stuff but OSHA when they come out they're coming out for a reason and they're coming out to make money to pay for the the the inspector and all of the other costs. So they're usually not lenient. They'll usually give you a 50% reduction in the fines as long as you're cooperating. But, you know, as I told Eric, that was the best you could. If we got a $4,000 fine and we got a $2,000 reduction, that's as good as we're going to get. So,
kudos for the corrective actions.
Yeah, exactly. the information that's in our packet related to asbestous, is that part of the OSHA findings? that is one of the citations we had is that none of our buildings have asbestous work plans. So we paid Mystic Air to develop asbestous work plans and do asbestous evaluations for the town buildings. unfortunately as you've read there was plenty of asbestous discovered as part of the project. Not that that comes as a huge surprise, but we are going to have to be aware of that in the future. If we were to undertake any sort of significant renovation of the town hall,
we would be in for some pretty pretty stiff asbestous abatement.
So, the prim the primary issue, I mean, there is a lot of things in there that I'm just like that just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The one thing that does is the vinyl floors and the the composite flooring. you're going to have to encase rather than tear up. So when it gets to the point that someone's in that situation that this information has to be brought to them. Okay.
Every Jeeoff, every building has got that stuff. It was widely used. It's just it's very common place.
if we have to pull tiles up, it's not a major deal. It's it's as long as it's not fryable right now, it's not a big deal.
Yeah. And then didn't we do the roof down at the Did we We did the roof at the D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D DWP probably right when you started, Eric, right?
Correct.
Was that roof? I mean, did we did we encase the old roof or did we do the
No, we tore off because we already had two layers on it. So, we tore off and re-roofed. that roof. so I was a little surprised to see a bunch of stuff popped up for that. I know the lower shed roofs. that's why when we tore down the old building with that used to contain the what do you call the boiler? The old boiler building. you know everything in there contained asbestous.
Well, that's that's that's why I was surprised to see it on the report and that we might want to modify or have them modify the report because there are certain things in there now. I don't know if it makes any sense other than it's a document that stays in our file forever. But I I didn't notice that and I was like that didn't make any sense to me. So anyway,
yeah. So everything was sampled and tested?
No. No, no,
they only tested it. It
was just It was just a visual observation.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
There's There's a big difference between visual and actual testing.
No. No. Yeah. They only tested one item.
They tested a flooring piece.
Yeah. Which all seven by all seven by seven tiles are as best.
Yeah. Exactly.
They they tested a brown vinyl piece of flooring is my guess. 99% of the chances his best 7 by7 or 9 by9.
Yeah.
So, and and all this really says is that if you go to do a significant renovation of the windows, you know, or anything like that, you have to test before proceeding because you can't in a building of that age. There's an assumption that it's probably asbestous containing material.
Correct. But my only issue is Bryce sat there and just labeled everything. So I'm just saying it it it doesn't I understand what Jeff's saying. I understand what I would do if we were going through and doing the renovations. It's just it's documented and it's all there.
Well, next to every one of them, Jeff, it says not tested.
No, I know it says not tested, but also it's there.
Presumed. Presumed. It's like when I get a test, it says presumed until you actually sample it, it's presumed. Yeah, but but my correct we want to tear out sheetrock in one of these buildings. We've got to have it tested.
I mean, come on.
So anyway, whatever it it's something because it's not the sheetrock, it's the actual
joint compound.
Joint compound.
So I've run into it before. Trust me. It's it's it's sticky and it's it's not it's not expensive to do it. We just test it. If we do it, it's not a big deal.
Yeah. But the thing is I don't want to test everything now.
No, just if we're not testing anything we're actually going to do it.
Anything you disturb and you can become fryable, you want to test.
Yeah. But my issue is that it's all there on a list that some of it doesn't need to be there.
So, but anyway,
yeah, anything on that list we we disturb, we should just test it and call it a day.
Okay. and we'll do it 20 years from now when the town we have enough money to renovate the Department of Public Works building and the library.
It's not going to go anywhere sitting where it is now.
Okay. So, 8D water fountain at the Andover Museum. Eric, updates on this.
I'd hope to have the water testing back by now. The sample has been taken, but we don't have water quality testing on that. So, I have nothing to report on that at this point.
Okay. 8E food truck discussion. in our packet there was discussions as to what to charge the individual. Is the individual still in the process of doing what she would like to do or what what's where we
Well, she is on Janet Stephanitis is on this call. so at the last meeting you asked me for more information on what the charges should be for a food permit, either daily or longer. So I use CCM's information service, you know, and they're all over the map. Towns go from somewhere from $50 a year to $50 per event day. So somewhere in there is what is being charged? Now the question becomes in from my perspective is what is your objective in doing this? Is this are you trying to provide a service to the residents by having food trucks at events or are you trying to make money and therefore you know that kind of leads to what
you want to charge in terms of a daily or a longer term rent. Well, we weren't trying to do anything related to this. We were there was a proposal put in front of us that an individual would like to sit there and set up a food truck on town property. So,
right,
it would be nice in an event if there was a food truck down at an athletic event or at a community event and it was potentially there. So the question is what's a reasonable rate per day to allow someone to set up there? I mean in the past I mean when I first got on the board there was a there was a chicken a chicken truck next to Andover this and over and over is
and over and over.
Yeah I forgot chicken clock or clock I forgot the name of
what did they charge them? I could not find any paperwork on that. That was predated me. I remember when Dave had the and I remember him going through planning and zoning and getting approval, but in terms of what they charged, I have no idea. I I mean, listen, this is if Janet wanted to sit there and do a truck, I would have no problem if she she wanted to set up on town and she knew she was coming to get a permit and the permit was $50, $100, you know, and you know, she's got to make money if she's going to do this.
Yes, she's providing a value to the town and the town's got to get a little bit of money for utilizing the land and if because if we don't, we're going to have 20 food trucks there, you know, dumping all over us. So I I have no problem. I think we do it as a we look at it if she does it, we look at it as a you know, we start we start one number and then if she's successful and it's and it's valuable to the town and the town can she can make money and the town can make some a little bit of money that would be great. I don't think we need to decide it right now unless
But are we going to make it a policy? Because we need to leave it open to everybody. We can't just leave it open to one person.
No, we do. But we would need to sit there and say this is the
town policy for food trucks.
For food trucks. If you want to set up on town property, this is it. Or you want to get a permit to have a food truck in town, this is it. But we also don't do anything related to Tom's. Right. It is Tom's, right?
Yeah. Well, so
he's on private property and Tom's has gone through the zoning approval.
Zoning approval process. They granted a permit for that food truck in that location.
Okay.
That was on private property.
Private property and the planning and zoning department has given them approval.
Perfect. All good to go. So So Janet could sit there and find private private property within the town and set up on private property if she got the approvals from planning and zone.
Correct. Correct. But we're not discussing that. We're discussing town property.
I'm just giving Janet a little bit of information.
Right.
Understood.
Well, I'm just wondering, should we set up zones or areas that we can that food trucks can set up and then set up a fee structure and then go from there?
Sure. I mean,
we shouldn't just let everybody set up in any corner they want. just make areas that they can set up. And you want to set up there for the day, it's x amount of dollars. And
there's only one there's only one
legitimate property and that's the fields.
We can set up you can set up on Lake Road right there on the pulloff
next to Andover Andover. You can put one in there, too.
And over and over and over and over. Sorry. And over and over parking lot. That parking lot always drives me insane because you're pulling in and then you're pulling out. It's a terrible location. I mean, I I've ne I never thought that was a good location, even when I was pulling in there to get my kids ice cream back when they were five and six.
I mean, what about the parking lot of Lake Road?
No, we could do that.
Yeah. I'm just saying there's certain areas food trucks can set up and
we make we make those areas and just put a fee to it. If you want to set up through the day, that's the fee.
Okay. why don't we sit there and for the next meeting come back to this and address the areas that we think they would be in there and let's discuss what we think the reasonable fee would be for someone to do that but you got to realize you know we're going to get a lot of different potential people if it's successful so
correct
okay
group six has got a high traffic count so it may be lucrative for somebody to set up there
might be lucrative for them y
okay so let's identify the areas and Jeff and Scott, you know, the town, you know, where people would want to be. and then we should put it out to the public and let them have some input in that because obviously, you know, down at the bottom of Lake Road is has one is the
Excellent spot there. Yeah.
Say that again.
Excellent spot there.
Yeah, it would be an excellent spot right there.
Wallfield on Sun Saturday mornings.
Yeah.
Okay. So what guidance are you giving the applicant at this point?
Put together the areas that could be used for
her food truck.
Who is doing that?
Well, we are her food truck. It's for any food truck because we have to keep we just can't keep it for one person. We have to open it for everybody. So the the discussion here is the board is going to identify areas of interest that we could discuss and set up as potential areas for a food truck and Janet can communicate with the members of the board as to what she sees. So I mean really there's there's there is the area next to Andover and Over. It's a it's a town commuter lot. There's the the ball field in the two different locations. and there is the area at the end of Lake Road. Is there anything else that anybody sees?
We we we don't want anything at the Veterans Park, right?
No, that's what we just talked about.
Veterans Monument Field.
Veterans Monument. No.
Veteran Monument. No.
I would say that would be no.
No. Yeah. All right. just so we know.
Okay. Okay, let's if for our next meeting if there's any other areas that in the town that people might consider, we'll talk about them.
Like what if they were having a function up at the school or the town hall could have a also a permit for that? bring bring all the areas next meeting that you think would be viable and we'll we'll put them on to an
Do you want to get together and then we can talk to the applicant and see what her thoughts are too.
Probably save a lot of time.
Yes. Get her thoughts and let's just we can get this worked out for the next meeting.
Okay. 8F andover finest update. I mean there was something in the packet Eric I don't know remember where it was but we we have not in the past discussed a committee for that we have always discussed open applications for handover fandover's finest
and then the board of selectment went over them by yearly.
Yeah man,
wasn't it?
Yeah. But we haven't done a very good job of soliciting
and we haven't done a very good job of keeping the applications even though I know that's what it was in the packet is that there was there is a list of prior applications that were provided to the town. So what we should do, Eric, is by the next meeting give it that list together and get that directly not in the packet but to the board of to the board members so that we can see what's up. Okay. 9A discuss and act upon senior driver coordinator. So right now Linda Derek is been doing that job. she has she has graciously attended our meeting. So Linda, if you have a second, can you just give us a quick understanding of what you've been doing in that position?
Yeah.
sorry I put you on the spot.
No, no, I was just sort of organizing my thoughts. So, you know, people call and tell me when they need a ride and then once a week, we put together a schedule for the drivers and kind of hammer it out over the weekend and then go forward. there are sort of two categories. One is getting people to the events at the community center and the other is getting people to their individual appointments. So for the month of June, we had 100 rides to community center activities and we had 40 or so rides to appointments. July looks like it's on the same track. Okay.
So, what?
No, go ahead. Go ahead.
Yeah. So, that's you know, there's been a couple of other items like oil changes for the for the vehicles, insurance card. I the you know the the the sort of fly in the ointment is that one of the drivers transitioned his primary loyalty to Bolton only you know giving us available time that he had when he wasn't working for Bolton. So, that's been somewhat difficult and irregular. but we've been working with it. But, okay,
we have interviews for several drivers on Wednesday morning.
My understanding is that we received more applications even than we're initially interviewing. So, that was really good. and what what
I'm so sorry. I I keep are you are doing a good job is basically what I'm getting. well, you know, it was a it I'm trying I'm certainly trying to there was a gap, you know, when when Tess was fired suddenly there was a gap of information. So still to to this day people will call and say, "Do you have my appointment? I'm just checking to see if you have I made it a long time ago. Do you have me down for an appointment on Wednesday? No, we don't because we didn't know that just sort of was in the ethers. So, luckily, most people have the kind of, you know, intuitive sense to give a call and check in, but on a rare occasion, someone will be like, "You didn't come get me, but we didn't know." So, that's been a, you know, I hate that really. That's awful. Nobody wants that. There's a lot of vulnerability in needing rides to your appointments. There's a lot of uncertainty and our drivers are really great and mostly the the procedure is that they call people the day before to confirm and reassure. So I I think yeah I think our program is great. I think we need more drivers to be reliable and also to get around to everything. There's a few things that I'm having to say no to this week next one other drivers on vacation. So, so yeah, and and you know, personally, originally, Erica and I talked about a three-month, which would take it to the middle of August, but I also said, you know, while the director role is sort of forming, I will continue to do it now that I kind of have it worked out, pretty much have
it worked out, I'd continue to do it for consistency sake before there's another or a better alternative rather than be just done August 15th and there's again a gap of no one to hold that.
Okay.
Thank you, Linda.
Thank you. Eric, do you have any issue extending Linda's term as senior driver coordinator?
No, I'd be happy to to extend it for the next 8 to 10 years personally.
Okay.
Do we need to make a motion to do that or
yes, we do. Who'd like to make that?
You can go ahead, Jeff. I'll second it. You know, Bob Burbank never made a motion. You know, I I I
You know what? I will make a motion if you would like me to.
I would love you to.
Okay. I'd like to make a motion to have Linda Derek continue being the transportation coordinator past her original commitment of August was it 15th?
Yeah,
correct. Pass past August 15th with a end date to be determined. I'll second that.
Scott Person seconded it. further discussion. All those in favor?
I. All right. So, that was 5 nothing. The motion was made by Jeff Murray and seconded by Scott Person to continue the employment of Linda Derek in the senior transportation coordinator role. Linda, thank you very much. It's greatly appreciated everything you do.
Yeah, thank you Linda. It's I haven't heard any complaints about the transportation side. So
Oh, good.
You're doing a wonderful job. So, keep it up.
We have a lot of really really really great elder folks.
Really great. It's and I have so much gratitude to the program personally and it's really nice to be able to support it for others.
Well, thank you. Thank you so much for stepping up and doing it.
Sure thing.
Okay. thank
excuse
is there any more applications for the drivers? Eric,
well, we're going to talk about that. Can we do that right now? So, 9B senior transportation drivers. So, I know Eric and Linda talked about it. they have some interviews related to drivers. and normally the board approves driver hiring. So, Eric, what is your anticipation number of hires you're thinking?
I want at least one. I would actually be happy to hire two more drivers since, you know, we have a a bunch of holes in our schedule. I would be happier having four drivers on staff rather than three. you know, but it also depends on how many hours the individual part of what we do in the interview process. One is find out whether somebody's a candidate. We even want to offer them a job. And two, understand how many hours they want to work because, you know, in the past, we've had drivers that only wanted to work four or five hours a week but were willing to drive
and fill in, you know, and other people insisting that, you know, if they were going to do it, they needed to be working a full 20 hours a week. so our goal is to secure people that are going to work well with seniors. Number one, that's the biggest priority. And have the correct licenses or willing to get them fast. And number two, have the flexibility because sometimes we only need somebody for an hour, you know, and and that's a hard thing if if somebody's driving in doing a one-hour run, getting paid for one hour, and then driving home. So, it's it's a hard it's always been a hard position to fill or fill because it's been so variable. So, that's what we're trying to do basically. And myself, Haley, and Linda, Derek will be the three interviewing Okay.
Of course, the board has an objection to that.
Oh, Eric, how many hours do we need to fill as far as just a general weekly for drivers?
so right now we're making up for Ricky and Ricky pretty consistently drove about 20 hours a week. So, we have about an extra 20 hours of driving a week we're trying to fill. And also, can I just add Susan Camarada is not going to continue doing the school bus gig next year. So, that's a different job, but an additional one that we have to bill.
Actually, that's one the school has to build, not we have to fill.
Uhhuh.
We only provide the vehicle for that.
Oh, okay. Good to know. All right. So, so what my my my question is, should we should we authorize the hiring committee to h to hire drivers up to a certain number of hours
at this meeting and and let them decide who they want to hire.
100% agree.
Okay.
Because I don't want to hold this up. I want to make sure I I trust their judgment and let's just let them hire whoever they feel is fit for the position.
That would be perfect. That's why it was on the agenda.
I'll second that. Okay. So, Jeff Murray made a motion to allow. You want to make the motion, Jeff?
how many So, how many hours do we need?
So, I mean, it it varies all over the map depending on what's going on, but typically we're looking to add about 20 an extra 20 hours of driving a week in general.
So, if I make a motion, that will be s that will be sufficient.
Well,
well, going forward, it's not going to get less. Yeah.
Right.
So, what you're doing is what you you got to do is you got to just let the hiring the the hiring committee for this. Hire the people that they need and then the hours will be filled in as the job.
Yeah. So, you can't really sit there and say hiring for up to 20 hours, Jeff, because
you're going to hit a you're going to hit a cap and then
Well, they they do have a budget restriction. Well, no, they have a budget and honestly the transportation on senior transportation has always gone over budget over the last three years.
yeah,
not well maintenance, yes, but not on the driver end of things.
Not the driver. Okay.
So, we budget annually for about 2,000 hours of total driver time for the town,
which is 40 hours a week,
correct? And you're saying you're about a half you're about at half capacity right now?
Yes, we have two drivers currently. but neither of them necessarily wants to work neither of them is too excited about working 20 hours a week for the town.
So we made a motion for up to 30 to hire two drivers for up to 30 hours a week. Eric, wasn't there something back a few years ago when there were drivers that were working 25 and 30 hours and you cut them back to no more than 19 and a half due to MS and health benefits.
So I I will get into that. Yes, we restrict all the drivers that we have to working no more than 19 and a half hours per week because if we go over 20, we're responsible for paying them paying into the retirement fund. And since most of them are seniors to begin with and they're probably not going to work for the town long enough to take advantage of that, it loses money for the town and it loses money for the person and nobody gains anything. So yes, we do do that and that is written right into the personnel policy in the driver handbook.
Okay. So Jeff, how do you want to make the motion? Is it a total number appropriate level of staffing?
Okay. Do do I make the motion to authorize the senior transportation hiring committee to hire the appropriate amount of drivers is at the appropriate amount of staffing. I don't know how else to word it. Okay, that's fine. I'll second it.
further discussion. So, the goal is to allow Eric, Linda, and Haley to hire as quickly as possible the appropriate drivers to be able to handle the volume of rides necessary for seniors in the town of Andover. Right. That's that's the goal. That's what we're wanting to have happen as quickly as possible. Anybody else? Okay. All right. all those in favor? Hi.
Hi,
Carol.
Scott, did you raise your hand?
Yes, I did.
Okay.
So, I'm assuming Carol, you said yes because you clicked in, clicked out.
Yes, I did.
Okay. So, the vote on that motion was five nothing. The motion was made by Jeff Murray, seconded by Jeff Maguire, and it was a 500 vote. Okay. we have item 9C discuss open community and senior center position positions. the reason why this is actually on here is because the hiring committee has met and we want to or you know there's been discussions as to splitting the position into two different positions. a senior coordinator and a community coordinator have having a one part-time one full-time position. So, the board really needs to weigh in on this and then it will allow the committee to work to finalize job descriptions and then to move forward with interviewing and moving forward on on that. So, I'm putting it out there. you know, I'm opening it up for discussion just so everybody's aware because we heard what the Commission on Aging had to say. Carol and I are on the committee with Marcy Miner and Anarie Dagel. We we had a meeting. We have another meeting. We just need to discuss this and have the board of selectman weigh in.
Any any recommendations from the board? What is the committee's re recommendations?
well the committee has been in debate over this and we had discussions over it and the initial discussion is to have two positions with 19 hours. I mean so I'll let Carol talk to the initial run of that. We've had discussions as to u a fulltime position replacement and have that the I I'll speak for Carol, but in the discussions we had was that we would have a part-time person during the day for seniors and then we would have a part-time person at night for the community and youth programs. And you know there was discussions in our meeting as to who's responsible for the building, who is the person in charge. There's a lot of different discussions as to what the position becomes or what the positions are. And so that's as succinctly as I can break it down to everybody as to what we were looking at and what we thought we had discussions about. But you know the initial job descriptions that were provided by Carol were for two different positions for 19 hours each and the committee had some discussions. Now we have some issues with that position. Two pos two time I mean I I sit there and see both sides of it. I understand why you would want to have a full-time person and the full-time person is responsible for the building and the entire project. I also understand why we would have two part-time positions and the issues related to that
and not only potentially getting nighttime hours in place, but also sitting there and having different financial ramifications for having two 19-hour positions. But it's definitely got to be the board to decide what you want the hiring committee to move forward with. So, what's the pros to having a one full-time person?
Well, you have one full-time person that's responsible for the entire building and the entire operation. And you know, that's the person that you have answer all the questions. So, you know, when you sit there and you look at a full-time position, you know, the the issues related to the Commission on Aging, you know, you you have, in my mind, you just have somebody that's there and answering the questions and responsible for the building. In the case of splitting it in two people, who's responsible? Like, who's overseeing who? So, Eric is overseeing both of them. and does one have responsibility for the building? I mean, all those questions need to be answered. So,
well, would this would this be similar to the public works position where the full-time position would be on call?
just nights, weekends, because that would that would have to be if it was a full-time position, that person would probably have to be on call if there was emergency in the building.
that is true. If if they're the responsible person, they would have to be on call.
If you if you had functions at night, it would already be on the calendar and they could juggle their hours to incorporate those hours in the evening, right? Something like that.
Yeah. If it was a full-time position, that would be my expectation. Yeah, it would be mine also. But I I would think that they would juggle their hours to have some hours during the day and some hours at night if they had to be there
or if there was an emergency, they would have to be they would have to be available via cell phone or or, you know, on on call in case something happened.
A certain amount of
if they're if they're responsible for the building, they would have to be the ultimate person that would have to be responsible if something happened. So could that would come with a full-time position. If it was two part time,
what would those incidents be that you're thinking that would happen?
Damage to the damage to the building. something wrong with the plumbing, you know, just anything going wrong. Kitchen issues. I mean, there's all kinds of things that could happen.
Yeah, probably. Yeah.
Of course, there can be some, but I don't think you'd have as many problems as you would have say for the public works person who gets called when trees fall down, power, snow, and all that kind of stuff.
I mean I mean when when Eric when Eric was when Eric was out on his medical I mean we had the the bathrooms in the town hall backed up. I mean there's people flush paper towels down the toilet.
I mean those kind of things happen and that kind of person needs to be on call in case that happens.
I suppose so. I guess I tend to think of the possibly a full-time person would be better and that you'd probably would get more people applying for a full-time position. I don't know for sure who has applied, if anybody, yet. it just seems like a full-time person would probably have more of a commitment to it than two part-time people. I still think we probably would need somewhat of a part-time person to fill in as things start to get more involved at the community center, senior center, because you need somebody at night probably all the time.
Oh, you definitely need you definitely need a part-time person second shift or I would call it second shift.
How many hours were allotted to that, Derek? 45 or 46 or something. So currently the board of finance budgeted $47,000 for that position.
That's not
which practically is not enough to really hire a full-time person
or adequate staffing period.
Right. I think we put in originally 60, right? Somewhere in there. Yeah. Originally they cut the budget.
Correct. So,
I don't know what we can do.
There's there there are
I'm not saying you couldn't figure out how to fund a full-time position, but that was not what was what was budgeted was a single person that was part-time working at least 26 hours a week. Well, listen, I I would tell you I'm pretty much I I I believe that in the beginning initially that that should have been a full-time position. We should have funded it more. We should have given them more resources and not less resources. But because of the current situation we're in now, I've come to the belief that it's better to split the position into two different positions. we can get more out of the positions and financially we can afford it. I'm sorry to say it that way, but that's the truth.
But there's nothing saying next year we can't budget. If that person that's working days
wants to transition into a full they're working out very well and they want to transition into a full-time role, there's nothing saying that we can't put that in for next year.
Oh, we can put anything into our budget and sit there and request it. It's not that our board of finance will approve it.
Well, the thing is right now we have we have this we just hit this budget season and if that person that's in that part-time role or whatever working during the day and and the public sees that there's a a noticeable improvement, there's things happening at the community center and if that person comes on full-time, we can add to that and and expand it even more. I don't see any reason why that would be a long puck for us to try to get approval from the residents,
but you're not I mean, you're hiring for two different things.
Yeah. Two part time two part-time positions. If you're hiring somebody that's part-time with no benefits, probably you're going after somebody that's retired or somebody that's husband makes a lot of money and just want something to do in the day to keep them occupied.
That's very different than somebody that's looking to be a career senior center director, professional career senior center director who's likely to stay around. you know, if you want stability at the position, I hate to say it, but you're gonna end up paying, you know, somebody you're gonna end up doing that as a full-time position.
Understood. But we we're constrained this year because of budget.
Understood. Yep.
How many hours can we afford then, Eric? That's the question, I guess.
Depends what you pay him. Well, if you sat there and you took $47,000 and someone has to be in charge. You have to put someone in I I the way I looked at it is the person in the daytime shift has to be more responsible because they have more interaction with the people within the town hall, Eric and so on. So anyway, you you have a person that's running the senior community pro the senior programs and then someone running the the the community programs, which means the sports and the gym scheduling and the field scheduling and those types of programs. So you really only have, you know, somewhere in the range of, let's say, $25,000 split between the two positions each that you could pay somebody for the 19 hours. And Carol knows Carol had broken it all down. So Carol, if you can come off of mute and speak, that would be wonderful. Okay. So, unfortunately, I don't have anything with me and I'm trying to flip back and forth on my phone to look at things and I'm not doing a very good job of it. So, you you were there, Jeff. I gave you all we had all the paperwork for the breakdown.
I didn't have those numbers, but I'm just sitting there going, if Eric goes, we have $27,000 budgeted for that position. There's other money that's budgeted for other line items that we could kind of go in and and access. You're really looking at $25,000 per position.
Those are just bought
because I remember you broke down the dollar amounts when we had our first meeting. So I thought you came up with somewhere
around 60 for the three, but that included the position that Linda had with doing the transportation.
I know I didn't have the numbers. I can do math though. So, if Eric is telling me I got $47,000 budgeted to that and I've got other money sitting in in other budgeted line items and then yes, you have to take out the 10 the hours per week for the driver, senior driver coordinator. we have to make sure everything falls into the budget. And so, the question ends up being, is it part-time job or is it full-time job? If it's two part-time jobs, that tells the committee where they need to go. If it's a full-time job, that tells the committee where it needs to go also. So,
well, what do we budgeted for? If we're not if we can't afford a full-time position this time, then then the answer is two part-time positions. Unless we have money that we can pull over somewhere to fill these pos and like I don't know if you guys if you guys interview if the committee interviews for these positions and you can't find those two part-time positions then come back to the board and say look we're going to have to make this a full-time position because we can't fill it.
What we need to do is we need job descriptions to at least tell people what their job expectation is. So that's why we need to know what they are. If it's a full-time gig and listen, if it's a full-time job and it can only pay $47,000 less the senior driver position, well, then that's even less.
No, you you can pay the senior driver position out of the driver the money that's in the driver's account. So, you can you can basically subtract that out. We'd be okay with that. what you can't do is, you know, there aren't too many other things in that budget that you can really tap.
Okay.
With the so with the volume of driving that Linda's talking about, with the numbers being up, you're saying that there's enough extra money that you put in the driver's account to cover that position, too. No, I'm not saying that.
I'm saying that that's the only practical place you can take that.
And if you run over in that budget, then we figure out where to cover from somewhere else in the town,
just like we do with everything else that runs over.
Now, I remembered you did have the assistant position in there. $20 an hour. I think it was 10 hours a week if I remember because Jeff, I thought you came up with when we looked at the budget, you said there was somewhere around 60,000 between the 47,000 that was budgeted and I thought it was 20 or 23,000 for the center community center assistant. Carol, you do know that you were the one that came up with the numbers and you were the one that came up with the part-time positions. You do know that, right? So, I I don't have the numbers, Carol. I'm just trying to get an answer.
No, I actually had lower because I just did the 47 and the 6500.
Okay.
But then there was that extra position that I hadn't figured in that was the assistant.
Okay. So
salary line.
So I only figured in the two the 47 and 6500 for the 5300.
Okay.
So again, it comes back to the same basic ballpark numbers, which is $25,000 per position if we sit there and do part-time jobs. And so, so my question is, do we need to staff the community center
the same that we do during the day? Like what's the what's the needs at night versus the needs during the day? Is it is it 6040? Is it 7525? Is it 5050? Because if it's 5050, then we're going to need 1919. But if it's not, maybe it's 10 30, you know? Well, the whole issue is that the the positions, all right, you you're going to have to go. I'm just sorry. Like, there's so many issues going on related to this. You're going to end up have to be 19 hours per per job for for this current year. It it is it is what it is because of the
situation that we've put ourselves in. and the person at night that's doing the community side of this does not have a does not have a job description does not have an understanding of what they're doing. our current and Carol was our task town clerk. All of the issues related to the programs such as basketball and those types of things were funneled through the Tom Clerk's office. That's not going to happen. moving forward that that would happen with this person in this part-time position because they would be handling the scheduling of the gymnasium. They would be handling the scheduling of of those programs and collecting all of the money related to those programs.
the nighttime person,
that's what I would think. Okay.
How many hours do we need, you know, what I'll call second shift. How many hours do we need a week second shift? We have no idea because we don't have any nighttime programs, Jeff.
But what I'm trying to say is, can we add more can we add more hours to the daytime program and make that a full-time position and then keep that an assistant part-time position for nights?
It puts you into a different there are there are issues that can cause doing it that way.
Okay, I'm just I'm just putting it out there. As far as the basketball program and scheduling the gym, the rec commission will still do that. Megan Lai has been helping a lot with getting grants and things like that. we can still have the registration forms come in and just have a folder in have a bin in the county clerk's office just like the Norton fund has it. is a veteran.
If we're doing if we're doing these positions, Carol, we need to have these positions do something.
So, this this position sit there and do that. This position needs to be in control of the facilities for the town. It's going to be the same thing when the pickle ball courts come online. They need to be done in a manner that that moves us forward.
So, I'm just I mean, I think they need to be scheduled. the fees need to be collected and and and people need to be scheduled for use of those courts.
Yeah. And same thing with basketball needs to move to a different level of what we're doing. They're going to pay these people and we're going to sit there and ask them to do things. They can't be they can't be the rec commission needs to work with these people, not these people work with the rec commission.
And that's what I said with Haley. I think I think the rec commission needs to transition into more of a administrative direction focused committee and then let these part-time positions execute what they want as for as far as programs.
The rec you're you're right. The rec commission needs to be an idea group that says, "Hey, listen. We like to get this done for the benefit of the community. How can we work with you to get it done?" And then the person that's in that role would sit there and do some leg work, would come back to the rec commission and say, "We need volunteers to do X, Y, and Z." And colleague can work with this person. I have no problem with that to help set up the schedule. But
look at look at attendance of all these programs. Like if one one program is not being attended by a couple people, then we drop that program, we add another program.
Yeah.
That's that's what the rec commission should be doing is evaluating these programs and adding and deleting programs based on need and attendance.
Correct. rec commission should be sitting there in my head looking at programs that are going to build community involvement and working to help the people that are and especially if you're going to create a community center position. That community person needs to be the person running all these things and sitting there and making sure that they get executed with the help of the right commission but not the other way around in my mind. So,
so Eric, what's what's the downside of having like 25 and 13 25 days and 13 nights?
What's you put that person into a position where they're they have certain benefits offered up to them and you have other financial requirements that you're going to sit there and deal with. So, and I believe Eric, it's anybody over 19 hours.
Anybody 20 hours and over is eligible for MURF per the personnel policy at 26 hours, then they're offered health care. Also,
to me, it's it's it's it's like what what the board, you know, listen, it comes down to if we had enough money, I would sit there and say, "Hire a full-time person, let them salaried position at X, Y, and Z, and then pay them the benefits and do everything." We're not in that position. we can hire somebody for for a little bit over 20 hours and then have them be eligible for benefits and everything else. or we can sit there and and go with this, split them into two different positions and you're going to have to keep them both at 19 hours in my head.
Yeah. Exactly. I mean, if we build this and then the programs get built up to a point where we get here, we get the budget season in January, February, and the community center is taking off and we've got all these programs that are being developed and and the use is really high, then we have a justification to make that a full-time position.
Okay. I I I think I think those and and that's what we should tell these people, especially the person that takes that that that 19 hour a week job. Say, "Look, if this gets built up to the point where it's a full-time position, it's going to get budgeted as a full-time position next year."
Wow.
I I met with Haley. She already believes it's a full-time position. right now she she doesn't believe that she can do as much as she Now listen we've already taken from that position and taken the driver coordinator position and separated it.
Yep. And plus there would be another 19-hour position as assistant and that position wouldn't be a second shift position. Maybe totally if there was nothing going on those 19 hours a week at night maybe that person would come in during the day and help. Haley Haley's discussion with me was that the software that we wanted to put in place that we didn't put in place would create less paperwork and would make that position more efficient. So that would all be beneficial. I mean there's there's a lot of things we could do and we we we we as a community honestly think small too often. This position was supposed to be a full-time position when we opened the building. That's why we built the building. We wanted a full-time position in there. It was immediately cut by the board of
finance and
the board of selectmen didn't do a very good job of of of of establishing that position and supporting them in the way that we needed to to go to it. Where where we are where we're at right now, it is what it is. I'm just asking and I don't want to waste a lot more time. is okay. Is it a fulltime for two night two 19 hour positions then?
I think that's where we're at.
Okay,
that's what we can afford.
Okay. So, is that the motion you made, Jeff?
make a motion to have the search committee look for two 19-hour part-time positions to staff the community center.
Okay. So, I'm going to second that.
I'll second it.
Some second. further discussion on that. Carol, anything you want to add to that?
No. All that.
Okay. All those in favor of the motion for two part-time positions.
I
Okay. So, that vote was 50.
no, let me just add, Jeff, I will support, like I said, if it this if if there's a need for a full-time director there, you know, after a few months in in the next budget season, I will support it.
Oh, there's a need, Jeff. We both know need. It's just how we execute toward it. And
but we need we need to show that need. We need to somehow document and show that need.
Oh, I think the need is there. I think the need has been shown. I think that you I think if I got Haley's numbers correct, we have 185 residents that have used the program within the last month. That means that means that over 10% of the voting population of the community has done that. And then I I was sitting there with Haley going and this is something that Linda Derek might be able to help us out with. We need a we need a roster a voting roster of everybody that's o over the age of 55 and then over the age of 65 so that we can understand the volume of residents that would potentially have utilization of those of that facility. But I also in that discussion she sat there and Haley told me that there's there's an influx of people like the people that are always in the building sit there and see new people coming on and using different services and yes it is a it is a grow it and you know we can keep working at it and we're going to have to but we have to stop thinking small. It's
we do.
I agree. I agree.
I do. Oh, well, let's
we got a wonderful building there. You should be using it. They're correct.
Let's lay the bricks and get the foundation built.
And I would tell tell the residents if you haven't been in that building, you need to go into the building and look in the kitchen. Eric and the team have done a great job. Eric's going to work on getting that hood installed soon so that we can get residents that want to assist in senior lunchons to sit there and cook those directly in the building. I mean, I think that would be wonderful. But the kitchen does look does look really It is other than counter space, it looks great.
Does Yeah,
it's a nice kitchen.
Nice.
For counters.
So, am I getting that? I'm going to oversee both of these two. So, I'm going to have an additional report. I'm going to oversee the day person in the community center and the night person. Who's in charge of the kitchen? Who's in charge of the building? Who's in charge of maintenance?
Here's here's what we're going to do, Eric. Because the job descriptions have not been finalized, we will work with you to finalize those job descriptions and then you can evaluate what is going on and we will take your recommendations into it. So Marcy and Marie and Carol and I have an init have another meeting on Wednesday. We'll sit there and go through that. We do that. That is the reason why I wanted the understanding of the jobs so that we could sit there and get with you to understand what's up, how those report things work. I would probably sit there and tell you you're you're going to have two reports in my my head, but we'll sit there and work that out to your satisfaction. Okay? And actually, Eric, it might not be to your satisfaction, but we're going to work it out to the best we possibly can. All right.
Understood.
Okay. Thank you. All right.
what about the software that we need for the community center?
How many times are we going to beat this?
Let's let's sit there and bring that up at our next meeting. We got to hire somebody that's in the position and we got to sit there and you know,
well, two people plus another woman that came on told us we needed that software. Now we have three people said we need that software. We're thinking too small.
So, for the record, the board of finance lined out the budget for software for the community center. Period. Not just the scheduling software. They lined out for everything. Email, everything. We're covering that out of the town hall software budget because there is zero budget for that for the center.
Thank you, board of finance. Again, we need to sit there and work with the board of finance to understand what the priorities are for the town other than just a dollar number. So, we'll sit there and do a better job of that as well. So, let's move on to 9B, the register's request regarding space in the vault. Jeff, I know you had the meeting on Friday at the the Department of Public Works. Did you find a spot that we can
No, we unfortunately we did not discuss that. all of our topics pretty much revolves around the the position. so what I can do is I will I will go down this week and and talk to Mark and and employees and figure something out.
Okay, you can do that. But can I ask a question? This is to Carol. Carol, why can't it go in the community center?
It's supposed to go in the community center in the basement. Then why can't
it utility room area?
Can we do that? Can we get that done this week so the registars can have that freed space? I mean, and I'm not asking you, Carol, if it's if Carol and the rec commission are okay with it going into the basement of the community center. Eric, can it go in the basement of the community center?
Absolutely. That's where it's supposed to be.
How about we get that done before our next meeting and then Jeff, you don't have to
You can save me a trip to public works. If you authorize me to move it into that facility, I will do it. It just the wreck commission has not wanted to move that. They were supposed to move it after the last open house event they had. they chose to stick it right back in the ball.
Okay. So,
that's not on me.
Understood. Understood. Let's just move it into the community center in the basement. We have that building for a reason. Put it up on some pallets. I don't want to hear that. Is there is there a storage like can we get a storage box on casters or something that we can put the bounce house in and roll it and put it away?
It's already in a rolling storage container.
Okay, then it's it's settled. It's it should be easy to store then.
Let's go.
Fine.
Can we go back to one thing on on that we didn't really discuss under the open community and senior center position? We're less than a month away for Haley's temp contract to be up since you haven't even advertised it or decided what the job descriptions are. Haley has agreed to extend her stay. how does the board feel about that? Do you have any problem with me offering Haley a contract extension until such time as either she finds a different job or you you select the permanent person?
Let's make the motion.
Make a motion.
I'm fine with her performance.
Yep. So
the what date? I'll make a motion that we extend and and I'm just gonna it's Haley Proto, correct? I just want to make sure my last name is.
Yes.
Right. I make a motion that we extend Haley Proto's contract for the community center position until a time where we either fill the the director's position or she chooses to accept a different position.
I'll second that, chair.
Okay. so so that is to authorize Eric to extend that contract. All right. So further discussion on that anybody.
All right. All those in favor I
Right. So that was five nothing motion by Jeff Magguire seconded by Scott Pome. Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah. and
I just want to say thank you Haley for that report. It was very thorough. Okay. so a 9 C senior transportation garage.
So I threw in your packet because I don't think you guys have seen one of these before the initial scope of work from Millennium Builders. We have gone back and revised that and I asked them to value engineer it and see whether we could reduce costs. so they had a structural engineer review on site last week. I'm waiting on a revised proposal for them for that building. obviously it's considerably more than what we had in place for that account. so if we choose to do that as a town, we're probably going to need to allocate our LOIP funding to do that. There is enough money in the LOIP fund to make up the difference, presuming we don't have to spend all that much for the asbestous abatement or the demolition. I've got a strategy to reduce our demo costs considerably in a contractor that's willing to work with us. So, I think we're going to be
capable of doing that. but it is going to be more expensive a project than we initially anticipated three years ago.
It's all funded now. You have the money for all of it, right? The way you said. Yeah. If if we approve the spending low sip funds to do it then yes.
Yeah.
and I'm not asking for that right now because I don't have a final set of costs. and I will give you a final set of costs as well as a proposal as exactly where we take the money from when we proceed. So, so right now the the proposal is $462,000 $463,000.
we have how much approved by the town?
So, right now we have $350,000 approved by the town
and that was a $250,000 grant.
$275,000 grant with the town match
and the town match.
That's what we have approved at town meeting. Correct.
So, we're $110,000 short.
Well, we got 150 in LOIP.
Yeah,
correct. There's enough money in LOIP to cover it.
The rest of it.
Well, that's correct. But we still need to go to town meeting on that.
Do we?
Do we really?
Why?
To spend lods.
Not to spend losses.
We haven't in the past. I'm not saying we can't. and it may be smarter for us to do that and I'm not opposed to going back to town meeting with a proposal to do it.
Okay. Well, we need to get the
proposal finalized. And this is is this the same if if I was reading the documentation, this is the same group that's doing one of these groups that did this proposal is also the same group that's doing the field.
Correct.
Okay. Gordian is paid for by Gordian gets their money from the capital region directly. The Gordian group is paid for the oversight. We're not paying for that. What we're paying for is just the price proposal summary through the program using Millennial Millennium Builders. Now we are also using Millennial Builders for the other project also just a different division of the company. because one of them's more structurally oriented and one of them is more design and just ground construction oriented.
Okay. Okay. I thought I saw the same contractor.
Correct. so you're going to get back to us with a final proposal for dollars after they review what your request was for them to reduce.
Correct.
Okay. All right. Next month, we'll sit there and look at that status of the 9D status of the field improvements.
we're awaiting a price proposal through that also.
Okay. the field committee met with them on site. they asked us to come back and supply some additional information which we did. we should have a price proposal back from them officially within the next couple of weeks. Okay. nine E the status of grants that was in our packet. if you could give us a brief rundown of that and some timelines on those grant.
Sure. So, just the big ones, the steep 2022 grant, there's there's a lot of little grants here that are not reflected in this document, but the 2022 steep grant for the public transportation, that was 275 plus 75 town match. so and again with the assumption that we're going to augment that with LOIP funding to get what true construction costs are. I mean one of the biggest problems we ran into that is that we did not bid that out originally as a prevailing wage job. and we've been forced from the state to make that a prevailing wage job. we can get to demo pretty quickly. So the assumption is asbestous and and asbestous abatement and demo this fall and giving them a clean slate to work with. I don't know whether they could fit this project in late in the winter. they were late in the fall. I don't want to pour concrete when it's cold.
So, if it doesn't look like we can get them in and pouring concrete in November, then we would be looking at delaying construction spring for that wreck field improvements. So, we're quite far along in that project. and we're still looking at potentially fall construction season with millennial builders on that. this is right in their wheelhouse. I looked at a number, well, I looked at one field that they constructed under the same project or the same type of project. so I have no doubt they can do it. The question is just how much bang for our buck can we get? So once we get the initial proposal back, we will be adjusting our scope to kind of maximize the dollars we have for that project. the next up is Fed Local Bridge Program. that's the first one is Bunker Hill Bridge. Construction's about 30% complete. We should still be on schedule for December completion of this year. that's certainly my intention. and we're pushing the contractor to make that deadline. So starting next spring will be the federal local bridge program for Longill Road over the Hop River. again, this
is about a $4.5 million project that ultimately will not come out of and over taxpayer dollars. however, like the Bunker Hill Bridge, we have to pay the contractor and the construction inspection and then get rebated by the state and federal government. but they are in the end 100% funded. so right now the RFP is out as of the 11th for the construction management and inspection that will be reviewed in August. that because it's directly a project that involves a lot of state dollars and it's being run under design managed by state. they have pretty strict criteria for who can be on
the evaluation team for both construction inspection as well as the evaluation. So basically it will come down to four engineers plus me will be on the committee for one will be the state we'll use probably Todd Penny which is a a guy in Coventry and then Tom Weldon who's the guy that's our liaison from what was close Jensen and Miller. So that one's going pretty well. We've ironed out most of the details. We should have a finalized design for that in about 14 days. So that's the Longill Road bridge. lots. So as most of you know, we applied to Lots for funding for the pathway down Route 316 and School Street. we do have 100% of the construction funding secured. but we don't right now have the the full funding for the design phase of that project. the design is underway. We're basically at the 60% design phase for that project. and I'm hoping, well, actually I was hoping to have it by today, but I don't have it. a list back from the designer as to what the total cost to complete the the design for that project. so that's a basically a $2.9 million grant that's
still floating out there. state local bridge program. The next up to replace is the Lake Road bridge over over Cheney Brook which is at Bola. that will use that will be pushed off to the 2027 construction season. the CONDOT has already agreed to a one-year extension for that. We're at the 70% design phase. We've had the utility coordination meeting for that. the the hard part of that is that's going to take a series of construction easements. we will have to do a temporary relocation of the entrance to Basola Road from Lake Room. So that will be a little invasive when we start that. and I've already met with Dennis O'Brien and the
contractor on that a little bit. The contractor is we're waiting to get back from him what the limits and get easement maps for them so we can start pursuing the the construction easements for that. So
that project that project is $1.8 million project
correct? Yep.
Okay. Go ahead. nothing cheap. And then we're still waiting a final contract to sign regarding the DP wreck trails grant that is for the pathway that roughly follows the Percy Cook Trail and connects the municipal campus to the rail trail. and that is a designon fund. I already went through town meeting. the contractor has stated that they will because they are the delay right now in getting me the the final contract that they will honor what they agreed to for a price a couple of years ago when we first submitted that. we did receive a legislative appropriation this year of $250,000 for this fiscal year and another $250,000 for next fiscal year. we're still waiting on the funding authorization in which state agency that money is going to be assigned for. That money is earmarked for recreational field improvements. and this year's allocation will be used to augment the steep funding for pickle bow playground in those improvements. you know and then we need to have a conversation about what we're going to do with next year's a lot with the funding also. so other grants that are still out there, we have not heard back on our grant submission to do for a new handicapped accessible van. we should get that notification sometime in the fall whether we're going to get it.
judging by our past grant submissions, we rarely get those on the first round. So, I would expect we won't get it. but we'll reapply you know next April. So there's a good chance we'll get it in the second grant authorization. I mean there's still some chance we'll get it but it's it's far from a guaranteed federal congressional appropriation. We initially requested money from the federal government through Mr. Murphy's office Senator Murphy's office. it made it through the Senate Appropriation Commission or Senate Appropriation Committee in the last fiscal year. and then the way the budget occurred, there were no appropriations for any congressional or senatorial appropriations approved. So nothing got approved. the Senate has said those those that made it through the Senate appropriations the previous year
will be prioritized and this year's grant applications through the congressional appropriations. We have fully resubmitted it on time this year through Senator Murphy's office. again, you know, we won't know till the earliest we'll know in October if they actually pass a budget next year. you know, but most years it's considerably later than that. So the last thing up is LOEP funds. So, we still have approximately $70,000 left in the old reimbursement program that we haven't spent and we have an additional $82,000 that's actually in our town LOIP account now. So, those are ex available for projects that go through the CIP and approval process. So, my assumption at this point is we're going to spend all of that money for the senior transportation garage. looking forward, it looks like there will be another round of trip, which is transportation rural improvement funds this year. I've been working a little bit with the town planner. I think probably what we're going to try to do is we're going to probably try to submit a trip grant for repairing one of the other culverts. The advantage of trip is that it's an 80%
match. So that you know that's a lot better than the the state local bridge program which is a 5050 match. and that's pretty much where we are on grants unless you have any other questions for me. Is there a limit on the trip dollars? [Music]
Yes, it's more than a million. I think it's a million5. but I'm not positive.
Okay. All of our culverts need to go through that then. Well,
I mean, because even at 1.8, if I get 80% of of 1.5, I'd end up with more money.
Yes. Yes.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much for that report. That was very helpful. And it allows the residents to understand where you're at, the timing on those programs. Just so I get it, you're thinking that this year you're going to do the demolition on the the old firehouse and the field is going to get started this year. So the pick
I'm hoping the field gets started this year,
but I'm an optimist.
Scott, the field commission and the field committee, you're expecting the field to get started this fall.
I'm an optimist.
Okay. All right. Well, let's make that an actionable thing. So, optimists in action.
I'd like to see the garage pushed through. I'm sure the whole board wants to see that thing done.
Well, that's that's why the request was to sit there and have these grants out here because what we need to do is, you know, Eric's got a lot on his plate. We've forced a lot on him. He's got a lot more that's on him. but on these grants, we need to sit there and make sure that certain things happen. So in my head the field and then the old firehouse project need to get done. And the old firehouse getting done would solve a lot of issues. You know, you would store the the town vehicles. It would hopefully give us some storage even though it might cost us a little bit extra money. I think it would be beneficial to the to the community. And then obviously all of the bridges and all that stuff are just problematic, but they need to get done. So, and Eric, great job identifying all those funding options so that the taxpayers don't have to fund all of it. So,
don't know what we do without you, Eric.
So, thank you.
Thank you, Eric.
No problem.
Okay. So, we're going to move on to item 10, approval of minute meetings. we had, minutes in there for 69 2025, a regular meeting. 612, 2025, we had a special meeting. 618, 2025, we had a special meeting. And 626, 2025, we had a special meeting. We're never going to do that again, are we?
Hopefully not.
Okay, that's perfect. So, I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes for 69, 612, 618, and 626.
Second that, Jeff
Scott. Any further discussions? Anybody have any changes they want to make to those minutes?
Darl, no. All right. All those in favor? I
'm going to abstain because I was at I was not at some of those meetings. So, since we approved them as a group, I'll just abstain.
Okay. So, the vote the motion to approve those minutes was made by Jeff Magcguire, seconded by Scott Person. There were four votes in favor. and May, Scott Person, Carol Lee, Jeff Maguire, and Jeff Murray abstained. Okay. There were multiple reports in our package. The treasures report. Anybody have any questions? Any issues related to the treasurer's report?
Okay. anybody have any issues related to the tax collector's report? Was there anything that we needed to approve on the tax collector's side? Let's see. One second. On the tax collector, a
lot of people paid their back taxes. Just so everybody knows, there will be a tax foreclosure sale, I believe, Wednesday for the remaining two properties in the tax sale. Everybody else came up and and paid their bills before that. Okay.
July 16th is the tax sale. So July 16th at 100 pm there is a you know and that is held at the town hall in the community room.
That is correct.
Okay.
So you can come bid on properties if you'd like.
Okay. did we have anything to approve? Yes, we do. So, we have three tax refunds totaling $2945. Anybody have any other questions on any of the tax sale issues or anything else related to tax collector's report? Okay. On page 120, there are the three tax refunds in the package. Toyota lease trust, Mark L, and a Sherry Palmer. A total of 29405. So, I'll make a motion that we approve the tax refunds in the total of $2945 dated July 8th, 2025.
Seconded.
All right. All those in favor?
I
All right. So, that vote was 5 nothing. Motion made by Jeff, seconded by Jeff Murray. any of the other department reports that anyone wants to have any issues or discussions on?
I think the only thing that the board should consider is several months ago the board had wanted to generate their own registration form for community groups to book the community center. We haven't really gotten anything back from that. you had been given a couple different options, but I don't think either of those were acceptable to the board. I don't know whether the board's made any progress. Haley put in a event rental rate that she thinks is appropriate for the community center. I think that would be something to consider approving. and then ultimately we still need an actual request form. I know I thought Carol and Jeff maybe were working on that, but I don't know what the status of that is. We still don't have any real way for for an Andover resident to rent the facility. those event rates don't don't bother me. They look reasonable. They're on page 122 and 123. The kitchen. The kitchen we're going to have to talk about because I think if you went and got a commercial kitchen rental somewhere else, I think it's a lot more expensive. So, that's something. So, maybe what we
do is push this to another next month and we look at that. But, I do think we look need to look at commercial commercial kitchen rental. because I'm assuming, Eric, you're going to have certification for that. Isn't that accurate?
Safe serve. Correct.
Safe serve is for us serving the food.
Yeah. What about for a
What about for serving a function? If it's just family members, does it have to be?
I have no idea to be perfectly honest.
Yeah, we're gonna have to look at that. But I what I'm after is is our kitchen a commercial certified as a commercial kitchen and can be used for someone for a commercial venue. So they would come and use the kitchen for $50 per use. That's too that's too low. We got to look at that one. So everybody look at those fees and let's come back at that next month. U but Haley, thank you for putting that together.
Yeah, they look reasonable.
Yeah. I mean the only one I have a problem with it honestly is the kitchen.
Yeah. I mean that that's that's something we we should definitely look at.
She probably put that because it's not completely in use yet like she said for warming serving or light prep.
Yeah.
When it is available for more maybe then we raise the price.
But do we really want outside groups coming in and cooking full meals in there? I don't think so.
Clean their issues. So let's bring that up at our next bean. So,
anybody else have any of the the issues in any of the departmental reports?
Okay. all right. If not, then let's move on to item 14, correspondence. Eric, you said there was a CROG summary. What page did that start on, just so everybody's aware? so the only thing that the first thing we really had I think that you should be aware of as a board is that the seamer's program they're supposedly within the next year we'll have the the retirement 2.0 program available that would only be available for new hire workers. you know, but it does it would offer the town some pretty significant savings in future enroles because as many of you
know of the So we as a town put in 16% for an employee but only about 5 and a half% of that goes into the actual retirement account for that individual. The rest is just simply there to pay for the fact they didn't collect enough money for many many years and they ran the program in the hole. So Seamer's 2.0 or MS 2.0 shouldn't have that additional you know almost 10% cost add or on it. there will be a new benefits structure that is outlined on the agreement. but that is what what they're looking at doing. that's been a request for quite a while. So, that's what I wanted to put put in there and kind of bring to your attention for correspondence. Sorry, it wasn't really a CROG summary. It's a merge summary. Okay.
So, you're saying in 2.0 as opposed to paying what we're currently paying, we're going to pay 5.25%. Well, we don't know yet, but it will be considerably less expensive because it won't be accounting for that overhead, that legacy overhead that the previous program is dealing with.
But for all of our existing employees, we're going to be under MS 1.0. So, we're going to have a whole calculation issue. You're going to have to calculate your your MRS on the older employees based upon the old rate and correct 10 new employees on the new rate.
Correct.
Yes, that is the case.
That's that'll that'll work out well.
I mean, the town certainly could opt to keep all the the new employees in the old program, too. It just seems like it's a considerably more expensive program. I mean, if it was up to me, we'd just go for, you know, defined contribution plans, but that doesn't seem to be an option available to us.
Okay. anybody have anything they want to discuss? Anything else? If not, we're going to move on to public speak. Anybody? Okay. U Marcy Miner,
hi. yeah, I just wanted to find out if it was an option to when we're on the advertising for the position for the director if we could possibly I don't know how to say this. I was trying to suggest that we keep it open. maybe if we hired somebody, you know, like one person, maybe 30-hour weeks for this first year. just to try to get our feet, you know, get everything. I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm tired. I guess we'll talk during our meeting.
Join the club. Thank you.
Thanks, Lane Bukart. Yeah, I had a few things. way back to the whole discussion about the NIP money. I'm I'm I'm one of the organizations on CART and I'm with SER. There's four of us. We've got the church, the food pantry, the Cub Scouts, and SER. and Don Londonberg is in charge of cart now. And that money that we have comes from the redemption center. They send the money, it goes to the treasurer and then the treasurer splits it up among the four organizations twice a year and sends us checks. So the NIP money would definitely have to be separate, kept track of separate so that nobody starts splitting that out among our four
groups. So that's like the only stipulation there. I did have an idea that maybe that money from the NIPS could actually be taken care of by the Harford Foundation for Public Giving group. have a separate little fund there and maybe some community members will come up with a good idea or project to go ahead and clean up the streets in Andover. I know El Poa does Earth Day cleanup and I think they might have another time during the year that volunteers all organized and go ahead and clean up around the lake. So something something like that, but it seems like it's more in the purview of the Harford Foundation of Public Giving, but there are many stipulations on spending that money and how to dole out that money that comes from the Harford Foundation for Public Giving. So maybe
something separate. also the discussion about the the signs and what's around the signs, the welcome sign. And I noticed Kathy Drocher is not on the meeting. She is in charge of the beautifification committee and she got a grant. She got money from the Hartford Foundation for giving to do a nice wall around the welcome sign. But then we had a snag that the state of Connecticut does not want anything that would kill someone if a car came up and hit it. So, they need a breakaway they they want a breakaway thing around the sign and the post themselves. and that wood would would be fine, but a rock wall is a no-go. So, Kathy is back to the drawing board redesigning what we can put around the two signs, the one that exists and the new one that's going to go up. but just wanted to go ahead and give you a heads up about that. Thanks.
All right. Thank you very much. Stephen King,
can you hear me? Okay,
you can.
All right. hey, congratulations, Carol. I've been away for a while. I apologize. I'm back. I'll be back for the for the duration. I'm sure a couple people are probably disappointed about that. Sorry, Jeff. But I have a very serious issue that I got to raise tonight. As if you're unaware, I'm a federally licensed firearms dealer dealing entitle and title two firearms. chairman of the Andover Sportsman's Club. I'm the chief range safety officer, former president and current vice president of the Connecticut Gun Guild, which holds a seat by statute on the board of firearms permit examiners. I was surprised today that from an ENCON officer who was on this meeting tonight that Andover is denying acceptance of pistol permit applications from residents. I want to let Andover know that although you can refuse to issue a permit to a resident, you cannot deny acceptance. that is a violation of Connecticut law and also not only the second amendment but possibly the 14th amendment of the constitution of the
United States. It opens you up to a huge lawsuit. So please you need to figure this out pretty quickly. You got to start accepting applications. Applications can be accepted by the chief law enforcement officer which is either you Jeff Brett Cook apparently has said that he he cannot process any. But Jeff, you can also designate somebody whether it be Eric or somebody else within your staff to accept applications. If you need help, I'd be more than happy to help you guys with this, but you need to start accepting applications.
I already had a conversation today with the the town clerk. We we realize we're legally obligated to do it. as much as I don't really like signing for them, we will.
Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. Again, if you need any help, advice, whatever, people come to me all the time asking for advice on federal, state, local laws and whatever because of what I do and my knowledge. So, I'd be more than happy to help you guys.
Thank you.
Okay, Joanne Heert.
Okay. I have a couple things that I wanted to talk about, too, just real quick. first of all, I'm really happy to see that memo that Eric had in the packet about the MS 2.0 possibly coming into being next year. I think that will save the town a tremendous amount of money. like Eric said, it sounds like you're paying a lot of administrative fees and town taxpayer dollars are going to fund a program that's not fully funded. So if it ends up being like 5% for the employee retirement, it'll be so helpful. So very glad to hear that. I'm also really in support of hiring two people for the senior community center plus allowing someone to be the transportation coordinator. I just think at this time it it would be overwhelming as we've found out. Not that the person was overwhelmed, but because of the lack of direction or a brand new building or what it was supposed to be, I think you can bring in people that can specialize in certain aspects of the senior center, community center, all the while again saving the money for not paying benefits just yet. As Jeff Murray said and Carol, I think as well, if it grows into something bigger and it's very busy, well, then it can morph into a full-time position with benefits and have better direction. I love that they've taken hold of the transportation. It seems to be going well. I think if you have 10 hours to spend on something a week and you're
focused, you just come in and get the job done. I think 18 two other 19-hour positions if needed can do the same thing with various aspects. So, I'm in full favor of that. I don't see it as a negative at all as we grow and as it becomes busier. the other thing that I just wanted to mention real quick is one of the items too on your agenda tonight mentioned some memo of understanding or MOAS, memo of agreement, memo of understanding with unions for something that's going to happen. I don't think you should have said what's going to happen. I don't think we need to hear the particulars of someone's personnel agreement, but I think it would be transparent if we're finding a need. Usually an MOA or an MOU is to pay someone additional funds to do additional work or to give them more
duties. I think the town should have just been told, "Hey, this is what's happening since you talked about it. You all said, "Oh, we're going to look at our memo. We're going to look at this." I personally would have liked to hear what it is. I'm glad you're following all the union things as the town and I just think we have a right to know if if there's new duties coming on for someone or it would have been good to hear. Thank you,
Pescrass.
Nothing for me. Thank you,
Kimberly Person.
I I know it's late so I'm not going to say too much, but I will send a selectman an email tomorrow. I really want to offer my services to the community center and for free just help you guys out with figuring all the staffing out and the hours etc. So it's so late I don't need to talk about it tonight but I'll send you guys an email tomorrow.
All right, Leanne Hutchinson.
Yes. Hi. Elaine sort of asked what I was going to ask to some extent anyway about the NIP money. this was the first I learned about it and I it's my understanding that money that's comes from the 5 cent deposit comes back to the municipality and then that's where this money that came from tonight that you're talked about that's where it came from in the first place. So, I wasn't sure if you were actually forming a group to join the four groups that now make up CART and putting this money in to the money that they collect as Elaine described as distributed twice a year. so I guess I'm still not completely sure what the status of it is and maybe it hasn't been determined because she also talked about the possible Hartford Foundation for public giving playing a role. So, I'm just that was just occurring to me while you were having this discussion and I almost I'm going to hesitate. I guess I'll try to comment briefly on the senior center director because I'm on the senior advisory committee and I've spoken during public speak for the past two out of the last three months or something like that. as far as whether or not that committee still has
a role, and I guess I'm going to make my comments more of a I'll call it an observation. I know you're constrained by the amount of money that was approved by the board of finance and ultimately approved by the town. my inclination as a citizen is that it would be better to have a full-time director for several reasons. It seems to have been described as the previous the initial director Tess as needing she was working from what I've read I don't remember exactly where but from what I've read that she was working beyond the part-time hours that she was hired to work. it's my understanding that Haley is saying much the same thing and the Commission on Aging seems to be leaning toward that. So again, that's
just kind of an observation. I know you don't literally have the money to spend unless it can come from somewhere else and somebody's probably thought of that by now and regardless, but it seems like it's being done incrementally. I agree with the idea of having somebody there in the evenings for the community and recreational aspect and I don't have an answer for a division of hours or that kind of thing but again it just seems to me that this is being done a bit too incrementally and again to repeat I know you're constrained by what's in the budget this year. Thank you. Right.
Thank you very much. Did I miss anyone? Okay. item 16, adjournment.
Motion to adjurnn.
Your consent.
All right. Scott seconded that. All right. all those in favor I
The vote was five nothing. Motion made by Jeff Murray and seconded by Scott Persona. Everybody, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Eric, thank you very much.